First published 2021
She abandons the man she shared a home with and retreats to a stone cottage in a university town. From her thirteenth floor office, she begins researching Paul Celan, though she knows nothing about the poet. The city around her pulses with paranoia. Weather patterns shift ominously. Women face mounting dangers. Authorities enforce a mysterious curfew. She seeks dignity through isolation, but then Clara appears. Clara embodies everything she lacks: confidence, efficiency, certainty. Their bond deepens as Clara proposes an alternative existence. Yet violence erupts, threatening to destroy what they have built together. In this portrait of female fragility and brutality, Sarah Bernstein crafts a story that cuts deep while finding dark humor in desperation.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, 21st-century, dark-academia, academic
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Stone Cottage, University Town
Period: 21st Century
265 pages · Paperback · Daunt Books
Content warnings: anxiety, depression, violence